I was interested in your query. I have worked for ten years in writing
and delivering cultural diversity training to predominantly U.S.
corporations. I became disillusioned to a great degree in the short term
ability of any training to impact deeply held beliefs. To understand how
to create sustainable change in an organization, I was drawn into systems
thinking and learning organization.
With that introduction, I would say that systems thinking is a paradigm
which can allow different cultures to firstly, understand and surface
their own cultural assumptions and secondly, provides a language by which
cultures can begin to communicate between one another. A meta language, if
you will. It also is a wonderful frame in which people can set their own
beliefs, not abandoning them, but perhaps setting them aside for the
moment, and moving into a climate where they can bring as much inquiry as
advocacy to the conversation. It provides a cognitive frame by which they
are able to listen to other ways of thinking, without feeling as if they
are disloyal to their own culture, because they can see each culture as a
system.
I would be interested in hearing more about how you come to frame the
problem the way you do. I hear you saying that your superiors see a
linear progression: first strategic planning, then learning organizations.
The logic of this progression is not clear to me. Is it because "past
socialist system is all top-down and within the political framework" is
accepting of "strategic planning" but not learning organizations?
In working with cultures and culture change, my experience has been that
it is a lot easier to plant a new tree than dig an old tree out. The
culture of the Internet, for instance, with its chaotic connectivity --
can you imagine anyone ever planning such a system? Or approving it? Yet
when it sprouted many of us leaped from our bureaucratic branches into the
tangled, uncontrolled, exciting web.
Right now, I am using computer capacities of image, data and conversation
to invite people within an organization into learning conversations about
key issues. We provide food for thought and reflection and conversations
that are open, but constructive. We frame the issues, but do not control
the content. The conversations can become small learning cultures
themselves. It has a more hands-on facilitation than a more open list
like this one and is designed to fit the technology and language of the
organization. We like to think of it as a walk to the virtual water
cooler with your most respected mentor. At any rate, I mention it because
I remember hearing that during the civil unrest in China, at about the
time of Tietamen Square, civil disobedience was conducted primarily
through fax machines, which were then a brand new technology. So new, in
fact, that the government had not yet devised a way to censor that kind of
communication. I am wondering to what degree changing the whole context
of the conversation might allow you to leapfrog out of the "line" of baby
steps?
Does this make any sense? Is there any entirely different container in
which your learning organization dialogue could take place? One that
would not trespass on the turf of the old system.
Marilee Taussig
The Ruth Institue
mtaussig@dawn-treader.com
610-892-7278
Thomas P. Dwyer wrote:
> I have a question for the list. I had a strategic planning session with
> the orgs. at the end of aug.(I know...outdated) but there are some
> organizational/relational issues that UMCOR will be addressing with the
> orgs. I finally picked up Senge's book and devoured it. I was wondering if
> you have heard of any application of this stuff cross-culturally? Here
> everything from the past socialist system is all top-down and within the
> political framework. I would rather by-pass going thru all this strategic
> planning stuff and go right into implementing learning org. strategies
> with these orgs. My superiors feel that these baby steps, so to speak are
> needed. What do you think?
--Marilee Taussig <mtaussig@netreach.net>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>